1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a compact or container for containing a blister card having a multiplicity of individual doses of a medication. More particularly, this invention relates to a compact or container of the foregoing character that has child-resistant opening characteristics.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many medications are now packaged in blister cards, each of which has a multiplicity of individually removable pills, tablets, capsules or other discrete forms of the medication. For the convenience of the user, it is desirable to package the blister card in an outer container, and the configuration of a typical blister card indicates that the outer container should have the characteristics of a compact of the type used in packaging face powder and other cosmetic products, that is, a container with clam shell-like opening and closing characteristics, and it is also important, in the packaging of many types of medications, that the outer container have child-resistant opening characteristics. U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,938 (Hofmann et al.) describes a package with the foregoing characteristics.
An important functional requirement of medication compacts of the type described that is not met by the aforesaid '948 patent, however, is that the compact be able to securely engage the blister card contained therein to prevent disengagement of the entire blister card upon opening of the compact for the purpose of removing only a single dose of the medication contained therein.